Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge OWC's Take on Apple's "Prepare for APFS"

OWC's Rocket Yard posted their take on what Apple means with its prepare for APFS document.

So the HFS+ volumes on my internal SSD will get converted to APFS, but other disks will stay HFS+ initially, during installation of the OS update.
Would I use Disk Utility to convert any other disks/volumes at a later time? It is not needed for read/write access, but is there benefit? Should I?
I have an external RAID 0 Striped disk. Does the RAID configuration complicate the file system conversion, if I choose to do it for that disk? Any reason for extra worries? The support department of the manufacturer responded (one week ago) like they haven’t tested that yet, much to my surprise!

Thanks to joemike, much of that doc is old hat around here.


Does that mean "drive", as in entire drive, or does it really mean "volume"?

For instance, if I were to upgrade my boot volume to HS/APFS, would my HFS+ backup Sierra volume change too? What about an El Cap volume?

Hmmm... I think that "built-in" part is new.

That apparently means that if I install HS on an external SSD it won't be converted to APFS.

IN REPLY TO URQUHART


YES


YES you can use Disk Utility at any time to convert any given Drive or Volume to APFS.

YES there are benefits to doing so. For example: APFS has its own unique system for recording and managing file versioning that is completely dependent on APFS and independent of Time Machine. (Every time I edit a file on an HFS+ volume and attempt to save it, High Sierra pops up a warning that it can't save the changes and if I want to keep a record of the previous version I will have to save under a different file name. Annoying, but it also reminds me I am giving up fie versioning by having the file on an HFS+ volume.)


Good question, I have a SoftRAID RAID 5 array and so far SoftRAID does not run on High Sierra. They are aware of the issue and are working on it, but their software is based on an Apple command line function that is changed in High Sierra and SoftRAID has to find a workaround for their software to work. There are multiple threads in Apple's Developers forum indicating Apple RAID does not play nice with APFS. Some have found work arounds but those are not ready for prime time solutions. At the moment I can't even access the SoftRAID array to convert it to Apple RAID. Just turning th drive on creates an immediate Kernel Panic and I hadn't seen a full blown KP in a long time until this came up.
THIS JUST IN: SoftRAID 5.6.3 is out and High Sierra compatible. I am working up to testing it with APFS. There are reports of beta testers using Apple RAID that cannot boot High Sierra from an Apple RAID volume. I have not tested that.

IN REPLY TO ARTIE505


Assuming a GUID partition scheme I believe that means "VOLUME". I have not tested this since the APFS/HFS+ option for SSDs was removed from the installer, but I have had both APFS and HFS+ volumes on the boot drive.


The OS version on a volume has no effect on whether the High Sierra installer will or won't convert it to APFS. Again this was before the option was removed from the installer, but I did install High Sierra on an APFS volume and another non-bootable volume on the same drive remained HFS+.

Not to overlook the obvious a boot volume with Sierra, El Capitan, or any other previous version of OS X/MacOS would of course be unbootable if it were converted to HFS+ APFS.


The "built-in" part was there when the option was removed from the betas, but I for one didn't fully grock the full implications. However that matches my experience, but before you take that as gospel, I have not tested all possible ramifications with any High Sierra beta, including the Developer's Gold Master, much less all the possibilities with all of the betas. So there is room for error.

TO REITERATE: I am very happy with APFS, its stability, performance, and features. For instance, it appears to make file versioning a a viable reality in every application, significantly reduce storage space demands, and opening up a plethora of future features. I am eagerly awaiting the public release so I can convert my wife's system and our server system to APFS as well. Now if SoftRAID can only get their RAID 5 drivers to work…

🙆‍♂️

I've been trying to follow this thread (and related threads) and of course I understand virtually nothing of what's being discussed. (What else is new?)

All I can surmise is that as and when (if ever) I decide to upgrade my computer and OS (currently running Mac OS X Lion), I will essentially lose everything on my current hard drive in HFS+ format as well as everything saved via Time Machine.

If my surmise is wrong, then I need a very simple (baby steps) explanation why. And if I have to engage in any convoluted machinations (which would be decidedly beyond my ability to carry out) to circumvent problems, I'd better know that now so that I can start reducing everything I've got to paper documents before I jump ship and hide in a cave.

Keep in mind that after 6 years of using Lion, I still have no idea how to use more than 5% of it.

1. The APFS format conversion is non-destructive and no data will be lost in the conversion.
2. Unless your internal boot drive is an SSD, which considering you are running Lion is doubtful, the conversion to APFS is NOT MANDATORY and you would not be required to convert when installing High Sierra.
3. If your internal boot drive is a Fusion Drive AFIK you CANNOT convert it to APFS at this time. Likely in an update to High Sierra that will become possible.
4. No special actions are required of you, or anyone else, for all of these to be true.

🎇🙆‍♂️ 👌✌️👍🎈

NOTE: APFS has some really nice features which Apple is certain to expand and build upon in MacOS 10.14 if not in future 10.13 updates. I think you are going to end up wanting to convert to APFS which could well drive you and others to upgrade to High Sierra.

I would also add that a Mac using Lion, is getting to the point the doing such a major upgrade to High Sierra is not a good idea. ...Wait until a new Mac is purchased as the hardware will then efficiently take advantage of whatever macOS version is current at the time.

joemikeb & pbGuy:

Many thanks. Just what I needed to know, in the fashion I needed to know it.

For the sake of completeness, my iMac is mid-2011 2.5GHz Intel Core i5.

Added Note: Over the years, I've used the benchmark of a Mac at 7 years of age, should hold with last OS update at the 7 year mark, before the next major, OS upgrade. Example for a mid-2010 Mac (now at 7 years & with 10.7 Lion): OS upgrades 10.8 (Mountain Lion), 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.10 (Yosemite), & 10.11 (El Capitan) could likely be effective and take advantage (processor depending) of all the security updates that came with each of these OS upgrades. However, 10.10 (or, 10.11) would be the last, macOS upgrade. So in my case, I did not install 10.12 (Sierra) on my mid-2010 MBP (with a Dual Core i7), but waited until I acquired my new, MBP (has an SSD) which would be efficient for the latest macOS (10.12 Sierra & now, 10.13 High Sierra with the new APFS).

Your 7 year benchmark dovetails nicely with Apple's Vintage and Obsolescence Policy.

It's interesting that Apple doesn't support AFP (Apple's own file sharing protocol) with an APFS drive, and instead shares an APFS drive using SMB (the Microsoft Windows networking protocol).

I have my file servers set up to use AFP and not SMB, because SMB is often attacked by hackers, and AFP is not.

Here's an extensive review of High Sierra Ars Technica 10.13 Review

Yeah I've gotten the impression that not even Apple likes AFP anymore. It's been that way for awhile now.

Dropping AFP support with APFS is not, or at least should not, be a surprise — at least for developers. Development ceased with the release of AFP 3.2 in 2012 and Apple has demonstrated a clear predilection for SMB since 2013. Given Apple's hardware obsolescence policy I would venture all support for AFP will be removed from MacOS in another three years if not sooner.

Here's a link to the beginning of the article.